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Thursday, April 14, 2011

Gluten Free Cocktail Party?

Not quite.

Tonight I volunteered at a cocktail-ish party for work. It was pretty fun. I only had to work for an hour and I got free food and drinks. Sort of. There were hors d'oeuvres in abundance, but very few of them were gluten free. I didn't eat dinner first because I went straight from work. I meant to stop and get a snack on my way but I was feeling a bit pressed for time. Not stopping was a mistake.

I had never noticed how most finger foods are gluteny until I couldn't eat them. Spring rolls, mini pizzas, pigs in a blanket (what a silly food), mini grilled cheese, mini quiche, crab cakes, filet mignon on little toasts, tuna tartare on crackers, and various other things.

The things I could eat: chicken on a stick, and smoked salmon on cucumber. Too bad I don't like smoked salmon. One of my coworkers apparently told one of the waiters I was gluten free because the waiter came over with the smoked salmon platter for me. I didn't like it the first time I tried it, but it was such a nice gesture I had another one. He then told me the chef was going to make something for me. He came back with two spoons of the tuna tartare without the cracker. How nice of him!

How many chicken skewers and tuna tartare can you really eat though? I must admit, in my state of hunger, and slight drunkenness (strong cocktail on an empty tummy - not my fault!), I cheated a little bit. I had two of the filet mignons plucked off the toast. This was only cheating a little because I didn't eat any gluten, but they were touching the toast before I ate them and therefore a no no. The real cheating was the 3 mini crab cakes I ate. Those definitely had some breadcrumbs in them. Oops!

I left hungry and ended up making some gluten free cornmeal pancakes when I got home. They weren't very good either. At least I didn't get sick from the cheating though.

How to survive cocktail parties of the future? Always eat first and stick to the cocktails.